A Christian visitor pours water from the Jordan River over the head of another at the baptismal area on the eastern bank of the river in South Shuna, Jordan, as people, background, gather for their baptism on the western bank at the Israeli-run site located in a part of the West Bank. Raad Adayleh / Associated Press

Skift Take: When you mix deeply held religious beliefs, political conflict, and the business of tourism you never end up with a result that's anything less than muddy.

— Jason Clampet

For years, Christian pilgrims have waded into the Jordan River from both its eastern and western banks to connect with a core event of their faith — the baptism of Jesus. The parallel traditions allowed Jordan and Israel to compete for tourism dollars in marketing one of Christianity’s most important sites.

But now UNESCO has weighed in on the rivalry, designating Jordan’s baptismal area on the eastern bank a World Heritage site. The U.N. cultural agency declared this month that the site “is believed to be” the location of Jesus’ baptism, based on what it said is a view shared by most Christian churches.

The decision drew cheers in Jordan, where the number of tourists has dropped sharply since the 2011 Arab Spring and the rise of the Islamic State group. Israel has kept silent while a Palestinian official said the western baptismal site, located in an Israeli-occupied area sought for a Palestinian state, should have been included.

The UNESCO decision also raised eyebrows among some scholars.

It “has nothing to do with archaeological reality,” said Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “We don’t have any sites with evidence or archaeological remains that were continuously venerated from the first century on.”

Experts who reviewed the Jordanian application for UNESCO acknowledged that there is no solid archaeological evidence confirming that “Bethany Beyond the Jordan,” also known as al-Maghtas, Arabic for baptism, is the authentic site.

However, the Jordanian site is of “immense religious significance to the majority of denominations of Christian faith, who have accepted this site as the location” of Jesus’ baptism, the experts wrote in their recommendation.

Jesus’s baptism is recounted in New Testament passages as the beginning of his ministry. John 1:28 hints at a possible location, the eastern bank: “These things were done in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.”

The debate over the baptism site comes at a time of regional turmoil, including the rising threat from Islamic militants who have destroyed ancient artefacts.

Jordan’s tourism minister, Nayef al-Fayez, told UNESCO that Jordan is sending a message of tolerance. The kingdom’s Hashemite rulers “who are the direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad … are the same ones who are protecting one of the holiest sites of Christianity,” he said.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict also looms in the background.

The Israeli-run site, known as Qasr al-Yahud, is located in the West Bank, one of three territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and sought by the Palestinians for a state. The baptism site is in a part of the West Bank that remains under full Israeli military occupation.

Extending the World Heritage designation to Qasr al-Yahud would benefit the Palestinians if they ever win statehood, but calling for this now might upset their ally, Jordan.

A Palestinian Tourism Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk with journalists, said both banks of the river should receive the same treatment, but that “it’s not easy for us to defend a site we have no control over.”

The Israeli-run site has attracted larger crowds than its Jordanian counterpart, in part because it is on the classic Holy Land pilgrimage trail. Israeli officials said half a million visitors came to Qasr al-Yahud last year, compared to several tens of thousands on the Jordanian side.

On a recent morning, the western site was filled with pilgrims while the eastern one, a few meters (yards) away across the muddy waters, stood largely empty.

Ukrainian pilgrims pulled white robes with baptismal motifs — available at a gift shop for $8 — over swimsuits. They walked down steps into the river, some pinching their noses as they submerged themselves.

On a slope above them, South African worshippers sang “Glory, Glory Hallelujah” to the sounds of an acoustic guitar.

“It doesn’t matter to me much whether it’s on this side of the river or the other side of the river,” said pilgrim Johan Cornelius, 47, from Middelburg, South Africa. “The fact that it is the Jordan River and that Jesus has been here, he’s been baptized by John in this area, that’s of utmost importance to me.”

For decades, such scenes were unimaginable. The river once formed a hostile border, and tensions eased only after a 1994 peace treaty.

Over the years, Israel granted access to pilgrims on religious holidays, and opened Qasr al-Yahud for daily visits in 2011 after removing nearby mines, though thousands remain buried in the area.

Jordan opened al-Maghtas in 2002. Archaeological digs there yielded remains of baptismal pools, chapels and monks’ caves — a setting reflected in early pilgrims’ accounts. UNESCO’s experts said the finds are “associated with the commemoration” of the baptism.

An eastern baptism site would make sense, some scholars said.

John the Baptist had antagonized Jewish authorities in Jerusalem and would likely have preferred to stay out of their reach, across the river, said New Testament professor Ben Witherington at the Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky.

Yisca Harani, an Israeli expert on pilgrimage, said that “if there is theological dictum to use one side, I would say the eastern side.” However, Harani said both banks should have been designated as a single site to reflect the meaning of baptism as a journey from the “spiritual desert” to the Holy Land.

A number of denominations, including Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox and Lutherans, have written letters of support for the Jordanian side, which three popes have visited since 2000.

But some hedge their bets, as the Greek Orthodox Church considers “both sides as holy sites,” said Issa Musleh, a spokesman for the church’s Jerusalem-based patriarch. During Epiphany celebrations, he said, worshippers come from the east and the west and “meet in the river.”

Copyright (2015) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

This article was written by Karin Laub and Sam McNeil from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

A man searches for survivors under the rubble of houses destroyed by Saudi airstrikes in the old city of Sanaa, Yemen. Hani Mohammed / Associated Press

Skift Take: Perhaps Saudi Arabia could do a better job stamping out possible terrorists by carpet bombing Sanaa with cash. That tends to make friends faster than killing civilians and destroying cultural heritage.

— Jason Clampet

Saudi-led airstrikes targeting Shiite rebels and their allies in Yemen destroyed historic houses on Friday in the center of the capital, Sanaa, a UNESCO world heritage site. Rescue teams digging through the debris pulled the bodies of six civilians from under the rubble.

The bombing drew swift condemnation from the U.N. cultural agency, whose chief expressed sorrow at the loss of human life and the destruction of priceless architectural heritage.

Yemen’s conflict has left millions of the Arab world’s poorest nation in dire need of humanitarian assistance in just about everything — from fuel to water, food, electricity and medical supplies — as civilians are increasingly caught in the crossfire.

Also, early on Friday, random shelling killed 12 civilians in the southwestern city of Taiz, which witnessed some of the fiercest battles between rebels and southern fighters, witnesses and officials said.

In the Sanaa airstrikes, residents initially believed the warplanes had targeted a house occupied by a senior rebel commander, but officials and witnesses later said there were no Shiite rebels among the victims.

The impact of the missiles flattened at least three houses and caused cracks in surrounding buildings, which are cemented to one another, leaving large sections of the old city’s district at the risk of collapse.

At a destroyed four-story building, an Associated Press reporter saw a pile of bricks, dust and wood mingled with clothes, kitchenware and water tanks, which are traditionally kept on roofs. An adjacent three-story building was split in half, wooden window frames dangling from the upper floors. Rescue workers were covered with dust as they searched for victims.

Most of the old city’s three-to-four-story buildings had been emptied out weeks ago, as their residents left in fear of the airstrikes. The Saudi-led coalition launched the campaign in March, in an effort to halt the power grab by Yemen’s Shiite rebels, known as Houthis. U.N.-brokered peace talks are due to start end of the week in Geneva in an attempt to end the conflict.

Mohammed al-Raddni, a neighbor whose grandfather lives next door to one of the destroyed buildings, said those killed in Friday’s airstrikes included three women and two men, one of whom was a doctor. A 16-year-old teenager remains under the rubble, said al-Raddni.

“What do they want from us? This is unfair. Why don’t they go search for Houthis somewhere else,” shouted Zahwa Hammoud, an elderly woman dressed in traditional Yemeni clothing, as she looked at the damage.

Hammoud, one of few residents remaining in the neighborhood, said there was a “deafening sound that made me feel my ears exploding” when the missiles struck.

A police car with a loudspeaker urged residents to stay away from the rubble.

Online activists posted photographs of the damaged parts of the old city of Sanaa, known as al-Qasimi. The old city dates back 2,500 years and is one of the most popular and historic tourist attractions in the Yemeni capital, famous for its decorated buildings made of packed earth with burnt brick towers.

UNESCO’s general director condemned the attack that targeted “the world’s oldest jewels of Islamic urban landscape” and expressing sorrow for the loss of lives.

“I am shocked by the images of these magnificent many-storied tower-houses and serene gardens reduced to rubble,” Irina Bokova said in the statement. She urged the warring parties to preserve the heritage of Yemen, which “bears the soul of the Yemeni people” and “belongs to all humankind.”

UNESCO said that since the beginning of the conflict, several historic monuments across Yemen have suffered damage. It said that on June 9, the Ottoman era al-Owrdhi historical compound, outside the walls of Sanaa’s old city, was severely damaged.

In recent days, airstrikes damaged an eight-century Great Dam of Marib, in eastern Yemen, as well as the ancient castle of al-Qahira in the southwestern city of Taiz and the Dhamar Museum, which houses thousands of artifacts, south of Sanaa, reported the state-run antiquities agency.

Arwa Osman, Yemen’s former culture minister, said the damage to Sanaa’s old city was “extremely painful.” She told the AP that many of the archaeological sites were used by the Houthis and their allies as army barracks. The castle of al-Qahira was used by the Houthis to shell fighters in Taiz, she said.

“I can’t blame one party but I blame all parties for causing so much damage to people and to our history,” Osman added.

Other airstrikes on Friday targeted northern provinces of Saada and Amran, where the Houthis are in control, and Taiz — the gateway to the southern port city of Aden.

Yemen’s violence has killed 1,037 civilians, including 234 children, between mid-March and May. More than a million people have been displaced by the violence, according to U.N. estimates. World Health Organization last month put the death toll at more than 2,000, with 8,000 wounded — including hundreds of women and children.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon is to hold meetings in Geneva with Yemen’s warring factions and regional powers on Sunday, in what are expected to be first substantive talks by all parties involved in the conflict. The talks are expected to last two-three days.

The talks will start as proximity talks but the U.N. will seek to bring warring factions around the same table, according to Ahmad Fawzi, a U.N. spokesman.

Ban hopes the talks will produce a “new dynamic that will build confidence between” the factions, he said.

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This article was written by Ahmed Al-haj from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

Skift Take: Raising awareness with awe-inspring footage may not be enough to bring in travelers when fear is an issue, but it can help redefine armchair tourism.

— Joyce Manalo

Jordan isn’t having and easy time with tourism.

It’s a relatively safe country filled with archeological treasures and good tourism infrastructure. But it’s also bordered by Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the West Bank, and Israel.

For two decades now it’s turned an appearance in the film, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” into a strong tourism marketing position for Petra, Jordan, the country’s most popular attraction. Now it’s hoping video techniques from the 21st century can help lift it out of the doldrums. During the spring, Jordan Tourism Board worked with the content marketing team at Matador Network to shoot multiple drone videos of its top attractions.

“After the success of Matador’s ‘Palawan from the Air,’ the Jordan Tourism Board decided to lobby the government to grant Matador filmmakers special permission to bring two 4K drones into the country and fly over and through all of Jordan’s most sacred sites,” says Ross Borden, CEO of the Matador Network.

Jordan’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities previously gave permission for archeologists to fly camera drones over Fifa, an ancient cemetery, to counter looting with surveillance, but drone footage in this country has not been published online before.

“Permits are not easy to come by, and luckily we had the cooperation with our partner to help facilitate that but I don’t think that because we did it, they [Jordanian government] will say, ‘open the floodgates everyone else can bring in their drones,'” said Borden.

These permits likely will be granted on a case-by-case basis, he says.

The Jordan Tourism Board has experimented with new ways to leverage digital media marketing. The board relies on social media to create awareness and, supported by annual grants from USAID Economic Growth Through Sustainable Tourism Project, it attracts visitors from the U.S., Mexico and Europe.

The World Bank reported that Jordan had approximately 4 million visitors in 2013, but Jordan’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities states total arrivals, including air, land, and sea, remained flat in 2014 at 7 million. Diving deeper, arrivals by air from the U.S. rose by nearly five percent to 168,011, and by one percent to 348,425 from Europe in 2014.

“Jordan was getting a pretty bad rap because of its location. And, I also heard that it wasn’t a hotspot itself,” said Borden.

The goal of the video is to bring awareness to the region, but realistically, promoting its attractions as safe places to visit isn’t as inspiring as the vistas from the mountains, desert and biblically significant sites.

Skift Take: It's hard to argue that Turkey's rise as global destination is directly tied to its "Home" branding or Instagrammer trips, but these efforts combined with support for the private sector keep Turkey's tourism offering relevant, ready and top of mind for potential visitors around the world.

— Samantha Shankman

Istanbul seems to appear towards the top of most aspiring travelers’ bucket lists today.

Drawn by colorful images of architecture, stories of souks, and the possibility of tasting local cuisine, visitors to Turkey have increased significantly in recent years.

An estimated 42 million tourists arrived in Turkey in 2014, contributing up to $36 billion into the economy, according to estimates.

It is difficult, however, to pinpoint exactly what led to Turkey’s, and especially its capital’s, status a trendy international destination. We recently spoke with Irfan Onal, the director at the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, about the organization’s marketing efforts, social media strategy and on-the-ground relationships.

An edited version of our interview can be read below:

Editor’s Note: Skift is publishing a series of interviews with CEOs of destination marketing organizations where we discuss the future of their organizations and the evolving strategies for attracting visitors. Read all the interviews as they come out here.

Skift: Turkey has become a hugely popular destination in recent years. What do you think contributed to its growth?

Irfan Onal: Turkey’s tourism sector has grown very quickly in the last decade because it is a continent-like country with huge diversity in terms of culture, geography and climate. Thanks to investments and subsidies in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Turkey’s tourism growth has been in the double digits making it one of the most popular destinations in the Mediterranean area with more than 37 million visitors a year.

We are the sixth most visited country in the world. Mass tourism started with the sea and sand, but we’ve started to invest in cultural and city tourism because we have huge opportunities.

Skift: What role has social media played in branding Turkey as a trendy destination?

Onal: Digital and social media is the reality of the world today. We invest in it a lot because it’s the best way to create a connection between Turkey as a destination and an individual.

Skift: Turkey has hosted several high-profile press trips. How do you measure the impact of these campaigns and whether or not they result in increased visitation?

Onal: These are very important – especially when we host social media groups. For example, we hosted Instagrammers focused on fashion, food, and culture and gained followers to our own social media channels. That’s a very direct impact.

Skift: What your biggest challenge today as the leader of Turkey Tourism?

Onal: Our biggest challenge is creating the right connection with potential visitors. From a marketing point of view, it’s very easy to share one message. When you have many things to say about a place like Turkey then you need to be very careful and clever to talk about all of the diversities and realities of the destination.

It’s a challenge, which is why we created the Turkey Home concept. We think about Turkey as a home of civilizations, hospitality, harmony, and many cultural and geographic values. We use very simple marketing elements and try to create a simple connection between people and Turkey — otherwise you cannot inform people about all of the different things in Turkey. Our policy is simplicity. We would like to be very simple, but also very powerful.

Skift: Is funding an issue when it comes to marketing Turkey?

Onal: Like every country, funding is always problematic. We receive funding directly from the government and have no other sources of money. We try to use the budget effectively, which is why we invest on digital and social media. It gives us a more intelligent way of using that amount of money.

Skift: Let’s touch on Turkish Airlines for a moment. The airline has done so much to raise awareness of Turkey as a destination and obviously played a critical role in getting people there. What’s your relationship with Turkish airlines and what role do you think that they’ve had in increasing tourism?

Onal: We share our plans with Turkish Airlines throughout the year and help one another. It’s a very reciprocal and fruitful relationship. The challenge now is to make the relationship even more fruitful through marketing.

We have a strong relationship with the private tourism sector. We share our plans with them, get their opinions, and have very close relationships.

Skift: How do political issues in the region impact tourism?

Onal: Tourism is so closely related to human beings that it is impacted by everything in politics, the economy and social life. But we’ve seen the private tourism sector excel despite political issues. Otherwise, Turkey wouldn’t be in the position that it is in now.

In this July 11, 2012 photo, Egyptians wait to board at the El Sayeda Zeinab metro station in Cairo, Egypt. Heba Elkholy / Associated Press

Skift Take: The Cairo Metro is a city below the city and mostly it really works.

— Dennis Schaal

Far below the gridlocked streets of Egypt’s capital, a virtual second city thrives.

The Cairo Metro system sprawls across the city, delivering an estimated 3.6 million passengers per day over three different lines and approximately 78 kilometers (49 miles) of train track, both above ground and below the city center.

In a city known, as much as anything, for its dysfunction, the Cairo Metro stands as a singular achievement. It’s reliable, well-maintained and relatively clean. And it may be the only place in Egypt where no-smoking rules are actually enforced. At 1 Egyptian pound (13 cents) per ticket, the Metro is a bargain even in a country like Egypt where nearly half the population of 90 million lives near or below the poverty line.

“It’s like the life train,” said Leila Abdel Basset, a 24-year-old journalist who has taken the Metro to work every weekday for the past three years. “It’s crowded in some stations, and empty in others, but it always gets me to my station.”

Veteran Metro riders know all the tricks and unwritten rules. For starters, men have to be careful not to accidentally step onto one of the women-only cars; those who forget could receive a hostile reaction from the women onboard.

Savvy passengers know to avoid the morning and evening rush hours, when the cars can become packed to maximum density with commuting civil servants and rowdy students. Others carefully choose their cars to avoid those that stop closest to the station turnstiles and are likely to be the most crowded.

But not everything runs smoothly down below. The cars are not air-conditioned, which can make conditions truly miserable on a crowded summer day. At peak times, each station can devolve into a violent wrestling match, with passengers aggressively crowding in from the platform and preventing riders from exiting.

But at the same time, a sense of community also exists. Riders commonly and freely give up their seats to elderly passengers or women with children. During Ramadan, the holy month when observant Muslims abstain from all food and drink from dawn to dusk, volunteers pass out cups of water on the train cars at sunset.

The dependability of the Metro became crucial during the 2011 uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak from power. The massive Sadat station extends underneath Tahrir Square — the heart of the revolution and the site of dozens of protests and violent clashes in the years since. Even when the streets surrounding Tahrir were blocked by cement walls and barbed wire, and tear gas from the clashes above filled the platform, the Metro still ran.

“The Metro was the tunnel to the revolution, it was the best transportation,” said daily rider Lobna Tarek, a 26-year-old photographer.

But the Metro’s immunity to Egyptian politics ended following the July 2013 military coup that ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi after massive protests against his rule. In August 2013, when authorities violently cleared out a pair of public sit-ins by Morsi supporters, Sadat station was closed and hasn’t re-opened since. Tahrir was a major hub for passengers switching between lines — most of whom have now had an extra 40 minutes added to their daily commutes

Since the coup, a simmering insurgency launched partially by Morsi loyalists has occasionally targeted Metro stations. The insurgents, so far, have used stun grenades designed to sow panic without causing serious casualties.

But despite everything, the trains keep running.

___

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This article was written by Heba Elkholy from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

]]>http://skift.com/2015/05/17/cairo-subway-thrives-although-unrest-has-touched-it-as-well/feed/0AHeba Elkholy / Associated PressDubai Is Building Hotels Faster Than Any Other City in the World Right Nowhttp://skift.com/2015/05/05/dubai-is-building-hotels-faster-than-any-other-city-in-the-world-right-now/
http://skift.com/2015/05/05/dubai-is-building-hotels-faster-than-any-other-city-in-the-world-right-now/#commentsWed, 06 May 2015 02:00:26 +0000http://skift.com/?p=151943

Now Dubai is doubling down by building hotels at the fastest pace of any city, putting pressure on occupancy and rates that are among the highest in the world. The 14,385 rooms under construction will increase supply by about a fifth, according to industry researcher STR Global, and thousands more are planned.

“There is concern around Dubai that we won’t see the same high rates as before,” Philip Wooller, Middle East and Africa director at STR Global, said in an interview. “But there is a bigger picture here and Dubai’s room rates need to soften to keep people coming and to allow the market to evolve.”

From the Roman columns of the soon-to-open Palazzo Versace to the Ottoman domes of Zabeel Saray, Dubai is adding to a collection of monuments that serve as tourist attractions in their own right. City authorities show no sign of impeding the rush toward growth, with plans to almost double rooms by 2020.

Profitability is flagging even before the new rooms hit the market. Revenue per available room, or revpar, declined 8.1 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier. Occupancy dropped 2.2 percentage points to 85.7 percent, while the average daily room rate fell 6.1 percent, according to STR Global. Demand is growing year on year, however supply is currently increasing at a faster pace, Wooller said.

Big Earners

For now, owners and managers might find it easy to shrug off a few points of declines. Revpar for the city stands at 839 dirhams ($228), the highest in the world. Hong Kong and Paris, which have more rooms overall and more mid- and low-priced hotels, come in second and third at $185 and $165 respectively.

“Even if occupancy softens by 5 or 6 percentage points, that’s a very strong market and any other city in the world would give its right arm for that,” Alex Kyriakidis, president and managing director of Marriott International Inc. for the Middle East and Africa. “Dubai is still a highly desirable market to be in.”

The rooms being built are part of a total pipeline of 25,949 under contract, second to New York, according to STR Global data. About 75,000 are already available. JLL, the Chicago-based real estate adviser, says 28,000 rooms will be added by the end of 2018.

Ruble Surprise

A drop in Russian tourists last year served as a warning that events outside Dubai could quickly hurt demand. The city is stepping up efforts to woo tourists with marketing initiatives, additional flights and easier visa policies after the ruble’s decline caused Russian visits to drop by about a quarter, Helal Saeed Almarri, director general of the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, said at a conference in Dubai.

Hotels and restaurants contributed 5.5 percent to Dubai’s economy in the first half of 2014, Dubai Statistics Center says on its website. The Dubai Department for Economic Development expects tourism to grow 4.1 percent this year.

Dubai authorities, who estimate that the city already has 93,000 rooms, would like to see supply grow by 8 percent to 12 percent annually, Almarri said.

That’s realistic, said Chiheb Ben Mahmoud, head of hotel advisory for the Middle East and Africa at JLL. “Tourism isn’t a matter of local demand, it’s something you create. Who would have thought 15 years ago that Dubai would have more than 13 million visitors?”

Cheaper is Better

Building more hotels is key to reducing rates and making the city accessible to a wider range of visitors, he said. “For a destination to grow, it has to be competitive. Large conventions still prefer Barcelona and Hong Kong to Dubai and that’s because hotels there are less expensive.”

Most of Dubai’s main developers have hotel projects, from the publicly traded Emaar Properties PJSC to privately held Jumeirah Group and Al Habtoor Group LLC.

Owners of the 1,539-room Atlantis, The Palm, are building another 800-room property nearby to be completed by the end of 2017. The $1.4 billion project will feature two buildings joined by a sky pool about 100 meters (328 feet) above the ground.

To fill beds, hotels operators must focus on strengthening relationships with businesses such as tour operators and credit- card companies, said Serge Zaalof, president and managing director of the Atlantis. They also need to increase direct marketing in different places to avoid a collapse if one market suddenly slows.

Euro Worry

“We hope the euro doesn’t decline further because people are really shopping these days and many would probably vacation in Europe,” he said. “As long as Dubai keeps providing value for money, it will keep growing.”

Dubai is building attractions such as the world’s tallest Ferris wheel and Hollywood-and-Bollywood-inspired theme parks and providing incentives for builders of cheaper hotels to boost the city’s appeal to families. In January, Dubai’s airport surpassed London’s Heathrow as the world’s top international air hub at a time local carrier Emirates is steaming ahead with its expansion of routes.

“Dubai is going to drive demand again through mid-range hotels,” said David Clifton, regional development director at Faithful & Gould. “There is massive need for three-and-four star hotels that cater to business travelers and conferences, rooms that can be rented for $75 to $150.”

This article was written by Zainab Fattah from Bloomberg and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

Skift Take: It will be hard to find people as willing to waste money on big brand names and luxury goods as the children of Russia's oligarchs.

— Jason Clampet

Dubai, home to the world’s tallest building and biggest shopping mall, is wooing tourists with new flights and easier visa policies as it seeks to make up for a decline in visitors from Russia.

Russian tourists declined 23.5 percent last year as the value of the ruble plunged, and the drop continued in the first quarter this year, Helal Al Marri, director general of Dubai Tourism Commerce and Marketing told reporters at a conference Monday. Dubai is increasing its marketing spending in Russia because the nation’s woes will eventually fade, he said.

The promotion is part of Dubai’s effort to diversify its economy away from oil and into tourism, logistics and trade, and within tourism to attract travelers from more markets. Visitors to Dubai, which permitted visas on arrival to more European countries in March 2014, grew 8.2 percent to 13.2 million last year, according to a report by the DTCM, even as the euro’s slump made travel outside the euro region more expensive.

“The challenges in tourism are many and every year one market is affected,” Al Marri said. “This year it is the euro and the ruble. There was a big drop in visitors from Russia in 2014 and in 2015 we expect this to continue, especially in the first quarter.”

Russians account for 3 percent of Dubai tourist visits, Al Marri said. Dubai has seen growth in tourism from China, Africa, India and Europe, he said.

‘Strong Growth’

“We expect a very strong growth in 2015,” he said. “We will keep on track, and there will be no negative growth impact after the first quarter with the increase in flights, new routes and new visa policies.”

The emirate’s budget airline FlyDubai scaled back flights to Russia by 30 percent to 40 percent last year, but forecasts improvements this year, Chief Executive Ghaith Al-Ghaith said in an interview. The carrier last month announced it will begin direct flights to two new destinations in Russia, the cities of Novosibirsk and Nizhniy Novgorod.

“We’ve seen improvements and forecast a better season coming up,” he said, citing improvements in currency and demand as the airline operates on routes not served by others. FlyDubai also is benefiting as competitors scale back on common routes, he said.

“Strategically, Russia is a very important market,” Al- Ghait said. “It gave us lots of growth. We’ve scaled down but the commitment is there. We’re making it work because there’s less competition, there’s true demand for Dubai and our view is not for the next one or two months.”

Dubai, which is known for ultra-luxury hotels such as Burj Al Arab and Atlantis, the Palm, wants to increase the number of hotel rooms by 8 percent to 12 percent, Al Marri said. In 2014, it had 659 hotels and 93,000 rooms, according to DTCM data.

This article was written by Deena Kamel Yousef from Bloomberg and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

A group of men bathe at the Nezafat public bathhouse, in Tabriz, Iran. The steamy air and curved tiled walls of Iran’s famed public bathhouses, some rinsing and massaging patrons for hundreds of years, slowly may wash away as interest in them wanes. Ebrahim Noroozi / Associated Press

Skift Take: Who wouldn't sign up for a hot spa tour of classic Iran?

— Jason Clampet

Iran’s historic bathhouses, where patrons are rinsed and massaged beneath graceful archways and tiled walls, may soon disappear as interest in them wanes.

Some of the bathhouses, known as “hammams” in Persian, are centuries old. But business has declined as modern conveniences now allow showers and baths in most homes across the Islamic Republic. The few that remain, mostly in old neighborhoods, largely draw day laborers and travelers.

“Nowadays, there are only three or four public bathhouses in Tehran,” says Mahdi Sajjadi, head of the Tehran bathhouse owners’ association.

In the old days, the bathhouses were more than just a place to clean up, shave or get a massage from a “dallak,” who uses a mitt to scrub and exfoliate a client’s back. Then, people gathered in the humid air to discuss current events and debate ideas.

Now, bathhouse owners like Gholam Ali Amirian, 70, who has spent four decades working in a hammam that is some 850 years old, fear the institution will dissipate like the steam from its heated pool.

“Some 35 years ago, before the revolution, we had lots of customers,” Amirian says. “At 4 a.m., when I wanted to open the hammam, there were people already in a queue. Five people worked here and we had over 50 customers a day. But now we have three customers a day on average.”

Sajjadi suggests the government could turn the bathhouses into tourist attractions by offering low-interest loans to owners to renovate their aging interiors. But so far, there’s been no move to do that as the economic pressure grows.

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In this Tuesday, March 24, 2015 photo, Jordanian royal desert forces stand guard in front of Al Khazneh, Arabic for the Treasury, the most dramatic of many facades carved into the mountains, in the ancient city of Petra, Jordan. Raad Adayleh / AP Photo

Skift Take: Perception is key when it comes to travel in conflict areas and Jordan long held onto its image as an oasis amid chaos. The message is becoming more difficult to maintain as outside pressures grow.

— Samantha Shankman

It’s high season in Petra, an ancient city hewn from rose-colored rock and Jordan’s biggest tourist draw. Yet nearby hotels stand virtually empty these days and only a trickle of tourists make their way through a landmark canyon to the Treasury building where scenes of one of the “Indiana Jones” movies were filmed.

Petra’s slump is part of a sharp decline in tourism as Jordan’s economy pays a price for regional turbulence and its high-profile role in the U.S.-led battle against Islamic State militants next door.

Jordan’s involvement in the anti-Islamic State coalition drew worldwide attention earlier this year, when it stepped up airstrikes against targets in Syria after the militants burned to death a Jordanian fighter pilot in a cage.

With the harrowing images, war seemed to come closer and tourism suffered, even as the kingdom tried to maintain its traditional image as an oasis of calm in a violent region. Video of the pilot’s immolation, released by the militants in February, led to a surge in cancellations of hotel bookings in Jordan, tourism officials said.

The tourism industry, backed by the government, is now trying to lure visitors with price cuts, including waiving some airport fees. But a quick recovery appears doubtful as neighboring Syria and Iraq sink deeper into violence and Islamic State militants continue to control large areas of both countries.

“We are not optimistic for 2015,” said Ahmad Amarat, manager of the 95-room Kings’ Way Hotel near Petra, which closed four months ago after an average occupancy rate of 28 percent for 2014, compared to 95 percent in 2010.

The tourism troubles are just one of a series of challenges Jordan’s economy has faced since the outbreak of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, even though the kingdom experienced little unrest.

“The instability in the region affected the economic indicators, mainly tourism, as well as foreign direct investment,” said government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria’s civil war, now in its fifth year, have strained public services.

Still, Jordan’s economy is doing slightly better than the regional average, with 3.4 percent growth projected for 2015, compared to 1.2 percent growth achieved across the Middle East and North Africa in 2014, the World Bank said.

Before the Arab Spring, Jordan’s tourism industry was going strong, with 8.2 million visitors in 2010. By 2013, that number had dropped to 5.4 million, according to the World Bank.

The decline accelerated this year, with the number of overnight visitors down by 50 percent in the first two months of 2015, said Abdel Al Razzaq Arabiyat, managing director of the Jordan Tourism Board.

The slump threatens thousands of tourism jobs, a loss Jordan can ill afford. The official unemployment rate is close to 12 percent, though actual joblessness is believed to much higher, especially among young Jordanians, creating potentially fertile ground for extremism.

In Petra, a UNESCO World Heritage site, the number of annual visitors dropped from 800,000 in 2010 to 400,000 last year, said Yassar al-Majali, general manager of the Jordan Hotel Association.

About half of the visitors currently come for day trips, rather than staying overnight, he said.

In Wadi Mousa, a town of 25,000 closest to Petra, 10 of 38 hotels were forced to close, including nine in the past year, while others have scaled back staff, said Khaled Nawafleh, head of the Petra Hotel Association.

The town has lost 1,500 tourism jobs, he said.

Hussam Hamadeen, a 37-year-old father of three, lost his job as a reception clerk after the Kings’ Way Hotel closed. He unsuccessfully looked for work in two other tourist areas — the capital, Amman, 250 kilometers (155 miles) to the north, and in the Red Sea port of Aqaba, 130 kilometers (80 miles) to the south.

Now he’s at home, using up his savings. “Everyone here is doing the same, and we don’t know what will happen in a few months when we run out of money,” he said.

Nawafleh said he is keeping his Amra Palace Hotel open for now, even though just 20 percent of the rooms are occupied, compared to 60 percent last March.

The Petra Visitors’ Center, with souvenir shops arranged around a square, is typically jammed at this time of the year. On a recent day this week, only a few dozen people walked around the plaza, where the “Indiana Jones Gift Shop” references a more recent chapter in Petra’s history — the filming of scenes of “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” in the late 1980s.

Some of the individual travelers, including two Americans teaching at an international school in Saudi Arabia, said living in the region helped put security concerns into proportion.

“Sometimes it seems things are getting more hyped up. I am not scared to be in Jordan, and I am not scared to be in Saudi, either,” said one of the teachers, 35-year-old Tracy Redding of Chicago.

Noor Muqadam, 47, originally from Mumbai, India, but based in Dubai, said he had booked a Petra trip in January, before the video of the immolation of the Jordanian pilot was posted online. After the video he got worried but Jordanian colleagues at work assured him the country is safe, he said.

Jordan’s government has been trying harder to bring back tourists. Fees and travel taxes at the airport in Aqaba have been waived to lure back charter flights and discount airlines, said al-Majali of the hotel association.

In recent years, Israeli tour operators offering lower prices had won some of the Jordan business, with tourists flying to Eilat, the Israeli port next to Aqaba, and taking day trips to Petra, he said.

The national carrier, Royal Jordanian, this week promised discounts on some fares, targeting potential visitors from Europe and the Gulf Arab states.

The tourism board, meanwhile, took dozens of travel writers and bloggers on a junket this week, with Jordan’s Queen Rania welcoming the group.

But Amarat, the manager of the shuttered Kings’ Way Hotel, said a quick turnaround is unlikely.

“Let’s say what is going on in Syria stopped today and they get rid of Islamic State today,” he said, standing in the deserted hotel lobby filled with stacked dining room chairs. “People will not start coming back the next month.”

Associated Press writer Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.

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This article was written by Karin Laub from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

In this photo taken Friday, May 31, 2013, a tourist takes a camel ride at the Giza Pyramids in Giza, Egypt. Hiro Komae / AP Photo

Skift Take: This is bad business for Egypt that certainly won't give tourists the impression that travel in Egypt is easy.

— Dan Peltier

Starting May 15 every international tourist’s path to seeing Egypt’s pyramids will begin with a trip to his or her local Egyptian consulate to obtain a visa.

Egypt’s ministry of foreign affairs announced this week that anyone who wants to enter the country for tourism purposes needs to apply for and receive a visa before they arrive in the country. This move will likely hinder the tourism rebound Egypt hoped for following its Arab Spring uprising in 2011 and subsequent political unrest. Europeans and Americans could previously get their visas when they arrived at an Egyptian airport.

Egypt instituted the same visa policy in September 2011 but suspended it three days after Egyptian citizens protested it would hurt the nation’s tourism economy. The Egyptian government hopes tourism will generate $20 billion a year by 2020 by attracting 20 million visitors.

Indonesia moved in the opposite direction this week and will soon roll out a more open visitor policy allowing 30 additional countries to enter without a visa, including the U.S., China, and many European countries. Australians were notably slighted from the list due to Australia still requiring visas of Indonesians and growing tensions between the two countries.